1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to document editing software and more particularly relates to editing a region of a document intersecting multiple content component types in a single operation.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic text documents are relied upon daily throughout the world. Creating electronic text documents using computer software is a common task that is well understood. Documents containing graphics and images, in addition to text, are now increasingly more common due to powerful computer hardware and software and the widespread use of digital cameras.
For example, a consumer product manual may include content components of three different types: text, graphics, and images. Typically, such manuals use text to describe how to use a product, drawings to illustrate a detailed portion of the product, and a photographs (an example of an image) to depict the product in use. The use of multiple types of content components in a document provides a powerful method of educating a reader.
Creating a document containing multiple types of content components, suitable for electronic or paper publishing, typically requires editing the position, size, appearance, and format of each content component. Functions such as cropping, erasing, color correction, and the like can be applied to each content component to prepare the document for publication.
Conventional document editing tools, such as desktop publishing software and word processing software, enable editing functions such as the ones described above. Typically, conventional document editing tools apply a function to one content component at a time. For example, conventional software requires a text content component and an image content component to be cropped in two distinct operations.
FIG. 1A illustrates a typical graphical user interface 100 for editing a document 102. The document 102 comprises a text content component 104 and an image content component 106. A user may wish to erase a first region 108 of both the text content component 104 and the image content component 106 in a single operation. However, conventional tools require the user to edit each content component 104,106 individually. First, the user selects a second region 110 of the image content component 106 to be erased. The tool then erases the portions of the image content component 106 within the second region 110.
FIG. 1B illustrates an edited version 112 of the document 102 after the erase operation has been performed. The tool has erased the second region 110 of the image content component 106. Next, the user selects a third region 114 containing portions of the text content component 104. The user then applies the erase function to the third region 114 to erase the remaining portion of the first region 108.
Conventional tools are typically not able to select a single region 108 intersecting both the text content component 104 and the image content component 106 and apply a single erase function to the first region 108. Instead, as described above, the user selects and erases a second region 110 of the image content component 106, then the user selects and erases a third region 114 of the text content component 104.
From the foregoing discussion, it should be apparent that a need exists for an apparatus, system, and method for editing a region 108 of a document 102 intersecting multiple content component types in a single operation. Beneficially, such an apparatus, system, and method would minimize time spent editing by reducing the number of steps required to edit a document 102. Additionally, the apparatus, system, and method would make editing a document 102 more intuitive to a user by allowing the document 102 to be edited regardless of the underlying content components 104,106 comprising the document 102.